J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Prague: The Charles Bridge and Hradcany Looking down the Vltava, and Buildings South of the Old Town Bridge Tower 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: The Charles Bridge and Hradcany Looking down the Vltava, and Buildings South of the Old Town Bridge Tower’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 89 Recto:
Prague: The Charles Bridge and Hradcany Looking down the Vltava, and Buildings South of the Old Town Bridge Tower 1835
D30800
Turner Bequest CCCIV 89
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark with the Lion of the Seven Provinces | ‘h[onig]’ | ‘jh[&z]’
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘89’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCIV–89’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From a vantage point on the banks of the Vltava River, here Turner depicts Prague from its Old Town. The Charles Bridge can be seen and beyond, the Hradcany district. The Bridge Tower, a gothic fortified gateway heralding the entrance to the Old Town, is at right. Rendered in faint outline at top right is the Hradcany, where the imperial Castle and Cathedral of St Vitus is situated. One of the Castle towers and the spires of St Vitus have been loosely marked out.
Turner produced several views of Prague on the 1835 tour. For other drawings in this sketchbook Tate D30759–30761, D30764–D30765, D30767, D30771–D30773, D30775–D30777, D30779–D30783, D30788–D30790, D30792–D30803, D30805, D30807–D30811, D30813–D30820; Turner Bequest CCCIV 68–69, 70a–71, 72, 74–75, 76–77, 78–80, 82a–84, 85–91, 92, 93–96, 97–102. See also the Dresden, Tepliz and Prague sketchbook (Tate D30344–D30361, D30364–D30366; Turner Bequest CCCI 25–33a, 36–37).

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: The Charles Bridge and Hradcany Looking down the Vltava, and Buildings South of the Old Town Bridge Tower 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-prague-the-charles-bridge-and-hradcany-looking-down-the-r1187175, accessed 01 April 2026.